(Newser)
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At least 31 people in 10 states have now been confirmed dead thanks to Hurricane Irene. The AP provides a full list of those who died and includes the cause of death for each of them. Victims range from an 89-year-old Connecticut woman whose house caught on fire after a falling tree limb pulled power lines onto her home, to a 20-year-old New Jersey girl who was trapped in a flooded car, to a Florida surfer who, well, tried to go surfing during a hurricane.

Though not as devastating as feared, the hurricane did cause a great deal of damage. More than 5 million people are still without power, and it may be weeks before it's back up. "We're dark across the whole map," said a representative from Connecticut Light & Power, which is dealing with the biggest blackout in state history. In some cases the cause of outages is obvious, but in others there's no apparent damage, and it can take days to track down the problem.

I feel bad for most of those who died as well as their families, but the two Florida 55 year-olds (who were certainly old enough to know better) and who died in separate incidents -- one while swimming, the other while surfing -- these are the types of chuckleheads who unnecessarily put emergency personnel in danger and prevent them from answering other calls. To those two Darwin award nominees, I say: "Good riddance".